


petals

by once_in_a



Series: the story of you [3]
Category: orange - 高野苺 | Takano Ichigo
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hanahaki Disease, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, but like, light fluff, only a little, uh, underage drinking i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:59:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7599028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/once_in_a/pseuds/once_in_a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>hanahaki disease (花吐き病): an illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs of flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. the infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals</p><p>when the petals first come, they’re purple lilacs. it’s the day you wake up to find that cherry blossom petals had joined their midst that you realize just how screwed you are</p><p>(suwa is best boy and they all deserve happiness, like really)</p>
            </blockquote>





	petals

You have a routine, cemented in place since junior high, when you realized just how pretty Naho looks when she smiles bright and honest whenever you make her happy, whenever the people around her are happy, and you end up needing to run to the bathroom to throw up purple lilac petals in the public toilet. You work with it though. You’ve been friends with Naho for a long, long time, and you don’t want to do anything to ruin that. After all, you’re kids. A small crush is a small crush, and it’ll go away with time. It’s only junior high, after all. 

Except, it doesn’t go away for the next two years, and by the time you’re a first year in highschool, you have a routine. Wake up, immediately throw up into the garbage can placed strategically next to your bed after you found out the hard way there’s no way you can make it to the bathroom on time, rinse your mouth, get dressed, eat breakfast, throw up it the bathroom toilet this time, vigorously brush your teeth as though that may get rid of all the excess flower petals just waiting to come up, and head to morning soccer practice. It’s not the healthiest of morning wakeup routines, but it works, and most of the time, you can hold in all the flower petals until you get home again, and it feels like your body is trying to make you cough up all your internal organs. Not a nice feeling, to say the least. But nothing happens at school, and that’s good enough for you.

So, you have a routine that works, and you stick to it for what you think will be the long run, except - well, except now there’s an unexpected variable in the picture. Kakeru Naruse, the boy that you are absolutely positively 100% sure, that Naho is in love with. You from the future tells you to save him, because he couldn’t. You expect to go along with it grudgingly, but after actually meeting the boy, and seeing with your own two eyes the pain he feels every day for something that isn’t his fault, and never was, well, let’s just say you get a little more… invested. 

And it works! Kakeru is alive and happy, and for once, there isn’t any underlying tension in the friend group, with everything now out in the open. Well, most everything.

It’s a brilliant morning, when the cherry blossom petals first show up. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and there is a pink leaf mixed in with all the purple. Briefly, you entertain the idea of pretending you have no clue who that petal may pertain to, but you would only be lying to yourself, so it is a passing idea at the most. You debate what to do about your routine, for a good five minutes. Does this mean the amount of petals will be doubled, or will it still be the same amount except now half are purple lilacs and the other half are pink cherry blossoms. You resolve to see how the day goes, and bring a few plastic bags just in case.

(The sight of the pink and purple petals floating on the water would be a beautiful one, if not for the fact that you are currently crouching in front of a toilet, and the petals are both shiny with your saliva, and discoloured from the breakfast you ate just a few minutes before.)

Acting like you usually do is a little more difficult that day. If only because now there’s one more person you have to somewhat distance yourself from. You keep the physical contact to a minimum that day, but still stand close enough to seem natural, and make your smile extra bright when you greet him early in the morning at soccer practice, if only to keep up your claim that, ‘of course everything is alright!  Just those exams approaching are making it so I spend  a little more time studying, haha.’

Your routine doesn’t alter much. Just that you have to get up a little earlier than usual, because the amount doubled, which is just your luck, really. 

Second year ends without a hitch, and third year transitions in with the same grace. It’s near the end, though, when you almost consider that you’re home free, when Takako confronts you. It isn’t really surprising that she noticed, really. She knew for Naho too, and you would think she liked you as the reason for her paying much more attention to you than anyone else has before, but she admitted to being aromantic and asexual in her self introduction at the beginning of first year, and honestly, you just think she just really can’t stand martyrs. Understandable, really. She doesn’t try to push you to do something about it, this time. Instead, she settles next to you, leaning against the fence that surrounds the soccer field, as you tie your shoes and she acts as though she actually cares about soccer.

“Kakeru?” she asks you, as though she doesn’t already know the answer.

“Yeah,” you reply. You finish lacing up your left cleats and switch to your right. She doesn’t say anything. You think she nods, before walking away without comment. You don’t notice she’s gone until you finish lacing up your right and stand up, beginning to make your way to the field where everyone else is, and notice the empty space next  to you. 

Nothing much really happens for a few weeks after that. Kakeru and Naho are as strong as ever, with Naho becoming bolder and bolder, though still somewhat shy. Hagita and Azusa finally got together, thank god. It was a team effort, really. 

You get admitted to Tokai as a part of the Health Sciences. You want to become a doctor. You had considered continuing with soccer, but, well, you remember how it felt when Kakeru looked at you after almost dying, and the relief and fear that was there. You think that’s when you realized that you wanted to help the people that felt as though they had nothing else to live for. You major in Psychiatry. 

Kakeru also gets admitted to Tokai, and he studies Sports Medicine. It makes sense, you think. 

Takako studies at Chuo University, and is admitted into their prestigious law school. It’s nothing short of amazing. Azusa stays at Matsumoto, in order to take over the family bakery, and so does Hagita, though he swears that it isn’t because Azusa is. He goes to Matsumoto University, and majors in engineering. 

Naho is admitted into Nihon, and studies philosophy. It suits her, to say the least. It’s close enough for Kakeru and Naho for it to not be considered a long distance relationship, but the Universities are far enough apart that they can’t rent an apartment together. You had considered moving into one of the dorms, then remembered your routine and how thin the walls are. When Kakeru asks you if you want to rent an apartment together, you say yes because, well, you don’t really know how you can say no without making it seem as though you no longer want to be friends, and, well, you still do. Want to be friends that is. You rent an apartment together, and choose the bedroom closest to the bathroom. You run the shower as you go through the throwing up part of your routine, and wake him up after you’re done with that. It’s a new routine, and much more fragile than it was before, but it works. And it’ll keep working.

You and Kakeru both still join the soccer club, for old time's sake. Naho visits often, and the three of you often sit on the couch together and watch a movie. Sometimes you wake up and Naho is there in the kitchen making breakfast and a bento for both of you. The only home cooked meals either of you ever really eat. Naho falls asleep at the table often, and Kakeru on the couch with the game on. You carry them both to Kakeru’s room, and tuck them in before wishing them goodnight. It all feels so domestic and sweet. On those days, you throw up twice as often, because that’s the perfect way to start  _ and _ end a day, haha right guys?

The year starts fine, and the months pass without problem. And then one day, you mess it up. It’s not uncommon for the team to go out after a win, or something good happened to one of the upperclassmen and they feel like spreading the joy. It’s on one of these outings where it starts. The event is for one of the rowdier upperclassmen, who makes sure that everyone buys at least one drink. You usually take great care in making sure you never get drunk, because that just prompts even more puking than you already do, but you look around, and everyone seems so happy, and even Kakeru is drinking and laughing, a pink flush on his cheeks, so you pop open your second beer of the night, and toast to the wonders of youth. Ha. 

You and Kakeru call it quits soon enough, and Kakeru hails a cab. He’s less drunk than you are, but then again, you did drink a lot more. You’ll regret it in the morning, you’re sure. When you manage to stumble your way into the room, with Kakeru supporting your weight, you head to the bathroom automatically, because you can tell by now the feeling before you’re about to puke, and that’s the feeling building in your gut. Your attempts to keep Kakeru out of the bathroom are met with rolled eyes, a crooked smile, and the words ‘I’m here to make sure you don’t drown in your puke.’

You hurl, and hurl, and hurl, and by the end of it, you’re pretty sure you’ve lost a pound or two. Kakeru cards a hand through your hair before handing you some water to gargle with and he goes to flush the toilet. You’re glad pieces of food and stomach bile covered most of the flowers, and that Kakeru is too grossed out to look any closer. Except, you choke when you gargle, and cough into the sink. The tap water doesn’t wash away all the petals fast enough, before Kakeru sees them while a hand is still patting you on the back.

“Suwa?” he asks, disbelieving. He turns to find you slumped against the wall. You don’t look at him, refuse to, more like. He still tries to meet your gaze though. There’s silence for a moment, and then “Two people?” You nod, just a brief dip of your head, but he catches it. He leans down even further, still trying to meet your eyes, and you glance out of the corner of your eye to make the briefest of eye contact as he asks you a question. “Naho?” You break eye contact, and the silence is long, but you nod again. This time even more of a shallow dip. The corner of his mouth twitches down for just a fraction of a second, and then it goes back to normal, but you turn away anyway because you’ve ruined it, haven’t you. “Who’s the second one?” he asks, figuring that it can’t be someone close to him, thinks he would have noticed by now. You remain silent. “How long?” he asks instead, and this time you verbally answer.

“A while,” you say, because, well, it has been a while.

This time Kakeru doesn’t even bother trying to hide the fact that he’s upset. “How come you never told me about her?” You look at him, and make the dumbest decision of your life.

It’s more of a brush, if anything. Just a whisper of what you’ve been feeling for the past years. You lean back out just as quickly, and run. He’s in shock, and you take advantage of it. You hail a cab five blocks down from the apartment, and consider who to go to. You tell the driver the address, and text Takako to give her a heads up. When she opens the door, she looks at you with what feels like both pride and sadness. You don’t say anything, and she doesn’t try to make you. It’s Thursday night, and you don’t have to face Kakeru until club on Wednesday and that gives you a few days to think and make adjustments. You were wrong. You didn’t regret it in the morning. You’ve regretted it since the beginning.

The next few days are terrible. You shut your eyes and bear with it, even as you dry heave into the toilet. Takako gives you your privacy, and you make her breakfast as a thank you. Not that she really needs it though, considering she’s a lawyer in training and thus has learned how to live off of black coffee, but it’s the thought that counts.

Monday morning, you don’t throw up. Either that means you’ve gotten over them both or--. The doorbell rings. Takako is in class, so you’re the one who opens the door to see them both. Naho smiles at you, the one you fell in love with, while Kakeru avoids your eyes but flushes pink when you open the door. You let them in.

They ask you some questions - how long, who knows - you ask some of your own - why, how, why - but by the end of it all, Naho is laughing, Kakeru is looking you in the eye and grinning, and you are the happiest you’ve been in a long, long time. For the first time in what seems to be forever, your throat isn’t raw and your stomach isn’t killing you, and you’re at peace. You’re about to send Takako a text letting her know your departure, when you see one unread message.

‘Talk to them. Don’t be a martyr. I hate those. --Takako’ You smile when you read it.

‘Me too.’ 

**Author's Note:**

> this is so long what the heck  
> idk what i was doing, kinda just wanted OT3, cause like anime suwa is def in love with kakeru, i mean, they held hands for 9 minutes guys, come on. but naho is like hella sweet too, and they all just deserve happiness so. takako is aroace because she is a badass lawyer and goddess. idk what i was doing concerning the majors and colleges and stuff. idk anymore


End file.
